Politics

In addition to the chapters in NCMH iii-v, see, for more specific introductions, the specific histories of kingdoms and regions listed for the Introduction above; also, for Iberia and Sicily, those listed for Chapter 6. Stimulating interpretations of medieval politics, relevant well beyond their immediate chronological context, are provided by Karl Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society (London, 1979), and his collected essays, edited by Timothy Reuter, Communications and Power in Medieval Europe (2 vols., London, 1994), as well as Gerd Althoff, Family, Friends and Followers (Cambridge, 2004), and the essays collected in Bernhard Jussen (ed.), Ordering Medieval Society (Philadelphia, 2001). Also helpful are the chapters in MW, especially those by Timothy Reuter, Susan Reynolds, Philippe Buc, and Magnus Ryan, as well as the essays in Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried, and Patrick J. Geary (eds.), Medieval Concepts of the Past (Cambridge, 2002). Janet Nelson is currently preparing the publication of Timothy Reuter’s collected papers, which will provide a wealth of stimulating insights. The variety of networks linking men and women of the central Middle Ages are highlighted by Susan

Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, 900-1300 (2nd edn., Oxford, 1997); Donald Matthew, The English and the Community of Europe in the Thirteenth Century (Reading, 1997); and Bjorn Weiler and Ifor Rowlands (eds.), England and Europe in the Reign of Henry III (1216-1272) (Aldershot, 2002). Some of the key institutions and elite groupings in medieval politics are explored by the essays edited by Anne J. Duggan in Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe (London, 1993), Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 1995), and Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 1997). For key questions surrounding the ideals and practice of knighthood and chivalry, see the recommendations for Chapter 2, especially the works by Crouch, Bumke, Jaeger, and Bouchard; and for the main aspects of warfare, see the works of Matthew Strickland and John France cited there.

The rise of pragmatic literacy has been investigated by M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066-1307 (2nd edn., Oxford and Cambridge, MA, 1993), with implications well beyond its immediate geographical focus, as illustrated by Adam J. Kosto and Anders Winroth (eds.), Charters, Cartularies and Archives (Toronto, 2002). On the ideology and practice of justice, see William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking (Chicago, 1990), and Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice (Princeton, 1997).